A New Song to an Old Tune

In January, when down the dairyThe cream and clabber freeze,When snow-drifts cover the fences over,We farmers take our ease.At night we rig the team,And bring the cutter out;Then fill it, fill it, fill it, fill it,And heap the furs about.

Here friends and cousins dash up by dozens,And sleighs at least a score;There John and Molly, behind, are jolly,—Nell rides with me, before.All down the village streetWe range us in a row:Now jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle,And over the crispy snow!

The windows glisten, the old folks listenTo hear the sleigh-bells pass;The fields grow whiter, the stars are brighter,The road is smooth as glass.Our muffled faces burn,The clear north-wind blows cold,The girls all nestle, nestle, nestle,Each in her lover’s hold.

Through bridge and gateway we’re shooting straightway,Their tollman was too slow!He’ll listen after our song and laughterAs over the hill we go.The girls cry, “Fie! for shame!”Their cheeks and lips are red,And so, with kisses, kisses, kisses,They take the toll instead.

Still follow, follow! across the hollowThe tavern fronts the road.Whoa, now! all steady! the host is ready,—He knows the country mode!The irons are in the fire,The hissing flip is got;So pour and sip it, sip it, sip it,And sip it while ’tis hot.

Push back the tables, and from the stablesBring Tom, the fiddler, in;All take your places, and make your graces,And let the dance begin.The girls are beating timeTo hear the music sound;Now foot it, foot it, foot it, foot it,And swing your partners round.

Last couple toward the left! all forward!Cotillons through, let’s wheel:First tune the fiddle, then down the middleIn old Virginia Reel.Play Money Musk to close,Then take the “long chassé,”While in to supper, supper, supper,The landlord leads the way.

The bells are ringing, the ostlers bringingThe cutters up anew;The beasts are neighing; too long we’re staying,The night is half-way through.Wrap close the buffalo-robes,We’re all aboard once more;Now jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle,Away from the tavern-door

So follow, follow, by hill and hollow,And swiftly homeward glide.What midnight splendor! how warm and tenderThe maiden by your side!The sleighs drop far apart,Her words are soft and low;Now, if you love her, love her, love her,’Tis safe to tell her so.

Just where the Treasury’s marble frontLooks over Wall Street’s mingled nations;Where Jews and Gentiles most are wontTo throng for trade and last quotations;Where, hour by hour, the rates of goldOutrival, in the ears of people,The quarter-chimes, serenely tolledFrom Trinity’s undaunted steeple,—

Even there I heard a strange, wild strainSound high above the modern clamor,Above the cries of greed and gain,The curbstone war, the auction’s hammer;And swift, on Music’s misty ways,It led, from all this strife for millions,To ancient, sweet-do-nothing daysAmong the kirtle-robed Sicilians.

And as it stilled the multitude,And yet more joyous rose, and shriller,I saw the minstrel, where he stoodAt ease against a Doric pillar:One hand a droning organ played,The other held a Pan’s-pipe (fashionedLike those of old) to lips that madeThe reeds give out that strain impassioned.

’Twas Pan himself had wandered hereA-strolling through this sordid city,And piping to the civic earThe prelude of some pastoral ditty!The demigod had crossed the seas,—From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr,And Syracusan times,—to theseFar shores and twenty centuries later.

A ragged cap was on his head;But—hidden thus—there was no doubtingThat, all with crispy locks o’erspread,His gnarléd horns were somewhere sprouting;His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes,Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them,And trousers, patched of divers hues,Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.

He filled the quivering reeds with sound,And o’er his mouth their changes shifted,And with his goat’s-eyes looked aroundWhere’er the passing current drifted;And soon, as on Trinacrian hillsThe nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him,Even now the tradesmen from their tills,With clerks and porters, crowded near him.

The bulls and bears together drewFrom Jauncey Court and New Street Alley,As erst, if pastorals be true,Came beasts from every wooded valley;The random passers stayed to list,—A boxer Ægon, rough and merry,A Broadway Daphnis, on his trystWith Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry.

A one-eyed Cyclops halted longIn tattered cloak of army pattern,And Galatea joined the throng,—A blowsy, apple-vending slattern;While old Silenus staggered outFrom some new-fangled lunch-house handy,And bade the piper, with a shout,To strike up Yankee Doodle Dandy!

A newsboy and a peanut-girlLike little Fauns began to caper:His hair was all in tangled curl,Her tawny legs were bare and taper;And still the gathering larger grew,And gave its pence and crowded nigher,While aye the shepherd-minstrel blewHis pipe, and struck the gamut higher.

O heart of Nature, beating stillWith throbs her vernal passion taught her,—Even here, as on the vine-clad hill,Or by the Arethusan water!New forms may fold the speech, new landsArise within these ocean-portals,But Music waves eternal wands,—Enchantress of the souls of mortals!

So thought I,—but among us trodA man in blue, with legal baton,And scoffed the vagrant demigod,And pushed him from the step I sat on.Doubting I mused upon the cry,“Great Pan is dead!”—and all the peopleWent on their ways:—and clear and highThe quarter sounded from the steeple.